


If You Could Change the World

by CultureisDarkBeer



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, False Memories, Propositions, Season/Series 10, Season/Series 11, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-06-28 06:29:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19806610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CultureisDarkBeer/pseuds/CultureisDarkBeer
Summary: What if you woke up one morning and your entire life had changed? What if Scully had never gone down into the basement? Would they still have met? Could they have escaped from the pain and torment that had followed? How would it affect their relationship, their children? What shape does their love form without the X-Files?In the vein of It's a Wonderful Life meets the Twilight Zone, I give you the lost and forgotten episode of the X-Files.





	1. Things I Should Have Said

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set after TLAOFS in Season 11.

A knock came at the door. Scully took one last look in the mirror and straightened her outfit. With slight hesitation, she turned the knob. Mulder stood at the other end dressed in a black suit that matched her long sleek cocktail dress. The corners of his mouth twisted upwards into a grin as he handed her a bouquet of various flowers. “Passed a cemetery on the way over. I don’t think they’ll be missed.”

Scully returned his smile as she buried her nose in an orchid. “Thank you Mulder, they’re beautiful.”

“They’re not the only thing,” he mumbled shyly to himself while he meandered his way into her apartment, watching her fuss over a vase.

She lifted her head to gaze his way and his expression changed, “Oh, I almost forgot.” Out of his coat, with trembling hands, appeared a jar wrapped in paper. “This is for you.”

The lines of her face curved in several directions as she stared at it. Slightly worried as to its contents, she took it from his hands and carefully unwrapped it. “I wonder what this…” she trailed off as she examined it closer. It was a glass mason jar filled with little scrolls inside like he had taken all the fortunes out of the cookies. “What is this Mulder?”

“It’s filled with things I should have said,” he told her just barely above a whisper. Tears welled at the corners of her lids and her heart warmed, but she fought back her emotions.

“Ready for dinner?” he asked, bending his arm in an offering. It was enough of a distraction for her to gather herself. She grabbed her purse and his bicep and headed out.

*

“Why don’t you just turn the car over to the valet?” Scully suggested, trying to hold back her annoyance of having circled the block for the third time.

“Why should I pay someone for something I’m totally capable of doing.? Besides, a spot will open up. I see someone getting into their car now.”

*

Halfway through dinner Mulder excused himself to the bathroom, but on the way back he was stopped by a cloud of smoke.

“Enjoying your dinner Mulder?” CGB snarled, exhaling the waste from the burning embers of what remained of a decrepit heart.

“I was.. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite,” Mulder shot back. 

“Attempting to win back the heart of the elusive Agent Scully, are we?” CGB cackled.

“What do you want?” Mulder asked losing his patience. He was annoyed and suspicious as ever. 

“What if I told you that it was possible to get her back? What if I told you, I could make it so she never left you? At least that’s what she’ll remember.”

“Smells like Dr. They.” Mulder spat, straightening himself to his peak height, puffing his chest. “What’s really going on here? Did Scully really have those visions or are we inside an ARV? Does he have us hooked up to some kind of Matrix contraption, letting our minds play out these scenarios in a collective consciousness so you can locate William? Is the world still dying of the Spartan virus while you busy our minds?”

CSM laughed, choking on his tar laden esophagus. “Mulder, you have quite an imagination.”

Mulder wanted to lash out. It filled him with physical pain to focus his mind. What if he could erase all her anguish and misery? No longer having to live with the memory of a lost son or abductions, his death. “As much as I want to erase the mistakes I made, I won’t hide the truth from her.”

“We could hide the truth from you.” CGB returned, his eyes flamed a hollow blue. A clear threat.

“You’ve done enough of that,” Mulder hissed. “Leave us alone.”

“Very well then. Would it appease your consciousness if you could live your existence in a different universe, where you made different choices, where you did give her the family you two desired?”

Slightly more curious than he wanted to be, he couldn’t help but ask, “and what would happen to our alternate selves?”

Puffing on his cigarette, he shrugged. “Does it really matter? You get what you want?” 

Mulder shook his head and scoffed. “My choices are who I am. You change my choices, you change me.” 

Refusing to engage in such trivial banter any further, he returned to his table leaving CGB to crawl back into the shadows. Scully took one look at his sorrowful expression and asked, “Mulder, what’s going on? Are you alright?"

Mulder sat down, returning his napkin to his lap, unclenching his jaw. "Next time, let's go somewhere casual."


	2. Shapeshifting Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder refused to take the bait from the Cigarette Smoking Man, but what if Dr. They provides a better offer to Scully? Will Scully choose to never go down to the basement?

The smell of gas was hot and rich as Scully heard the fireplace kick on in her apartment. Distant crows cackled in the plush trees with a joke she had not yet been let in on. In the darkness, lying in her bed, she stared out at shadows and thought of Mulder. The jar he had given her sat at her bedside, warming the room much more than the fireplace ever could. 

Her dreams, sent her only in one direction: down a dusty path over an hour from her current location, in a small house she once called home with the man she chose to follow so many years ago. 

“Wondering if you made the right choice?” the voice cracked hoarsely from the blackness. 

Scully jutted up in her bed, her silk night clothes sliding skillfully against her satin sheets; her gun off her nightstand and cocked within seconds. “I’m armed and a Federal agent. Take small steps towards the bed with your hands behind your head.”

A hunchback man with caterpillar eyebrows and red racoon eyes, took a step forward pointing his chubby shriveled finger. “I think you know who I am.”

“Dr. They,” Scully acknowledged, lowering her gun. “How did you get past the alarm system?”

“Why did you think I did?” he returned.

Scully looked at him hard. It was too early in the morning for this. “Why are you here?”

“To offer you a collective truth that might exist. As Cher once sang, if we could turn back time. Give you a life where you didn’t accept the assignment, never went down into the basement. One where there is no questioning of the laws of science.” He must have picked up on her indifference and continued, “There would have been no abduction, no reason to give away your child..”

“No Mulder,” Scully finished. “And, therefore, no William. I’m not foolish enough to rub a lamp.”

“You still would have been part of the FBI, you and Mulder would still have met, William would be your son..”

“But there would be no x-files, no cancer, no chip,” Scully continued for him.

“You’re getting the picture.”

“What is your angle?” Scully asked suspiciously. There had to be an ulterior motive. 

“Why have your Smoking Man destroy the world prematurely?” was his only answer. 

“Without William, he cannot complete his plan," Scully finished.

"Without you,” he corrected. “You are the key."

*

Mulder read Scully’s face as he watched the video of the conversation between her and Dr. They. He saw the kaleidoscope of expressions, the sadness and pain behind her eyes and he wanted, needed it to stop.

“She doesn’t remember a thing,” Mulder demanded.

“Nothing. Ever. Your past together isn’t even a distant memory.” Dr. They replied.

Mulder left the room, but the video played on.

“If Mulder and I don’t meet down in the basement, then he can’t blame himself for my abduction, for everything that occurred with our son, for all the obstacles in our relationship. If.. He can never remember,” Scully said sadly. 

*

“Mommy! Mommy!” the shrill ringing came with a pain to her stomach as the bed bounced and little bodies continued to pummel her; her sight blurry as she opened them. 

“Honey, we’ve got to get going if we want to get there by check-in time,” Mulder’s voice rang in the distance.

“Mulder?” Scully asked, her brain in a fog. “Where are we headed?”

“Great Wolf Lodge. You packed yesterday, remember? You didn’t get a hold of any wild mushrooms again, did you?”

His voice echoed through her and she wasn’t certain if she understood his meaning. Four happy heads were bouncing. A boy and a girl with red blazing hair, two younger ones with dark brown. All four with dad’s chameleon eyes.   
A young woman in her late teens came in and sat on the corner of the bed, her face buried in an iphone. With the exception of her light brown hair, she could have been a younger version of Scully.

“Five children?”

“Last time I counted.” He smiled. “Some days I find it hard to believe myself.”

The world turned upside down and slipped into the Twilight Zone while she had been asleep. She waited to see if she could hear Rod Serling’s voice-over.

*

The weekend over and back to headquarters, Scully hit the “B” button on the elevator. Mulder passed her a confused look. “Why are we headed towards the file room?”

“I-I had some files I wanted to look at,” Scully said attempting to cover up her blunder. She had to remember, there was no basement office anymore.

“Why don’t you get an agent to do it for you? Isn’t that one of the great benefits of being a director?” The doors opened to the fourth floor and Mulder stepped out and turned to her before they closed again and separated them. He sent her a wink and a grin.

Scully shrank back against the rail of the elevator. Director of the FBI. X-Files was closed. What could be better?

*

“Mulder completed a 402 for pre-approval? Are you sure this isn’t his way of apologizing for an unauthorized plane trip or maybe he’s hedging his bets that we’ll have to get him out of a stint of being detained by the DoD?” Scully asked Skinner.

Skinner laughed and lifted his eyebrows. “That _was_ Mulder.. But he hasn’t been that way for years. Not since the children were born. Now he completes all the correct forms and asks for permission before each case. All because of you and your influence. You made him a whole new person.” 

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She hypothesized when he took on the roles of husband and father he embraced a new set of priorities. 

By the window in the corner stood Dr. They with his cane, slowly shaking his head. Scully politely ended her conversation with Skinner and as the Deputy Director left, Scully closed the door. 

“I think you’re crazy,” she said to They. “What are you? A genie, a witch, guardian angel?” 

“You don’t believe in that stuff, you don’t believe in much of anything that isn’t science.”

“So what is this? A dream? Indigestion? A hallucination from drinking too much?” Scully laughed. “This is incredible. The X-Files is gone. Everything is gone. I don’t have to worry about smoking men, or disease carrying bees, aliens trying to colonize the planet.. Mulder never died or came back to life, I never got covered in manure, my dog never got eaten by Big Blue..” Scully pushed in her chair and put on her jacket.

“Where are you headed?” Dr. They asked.

“Home, for a drive, anywhere. I’m the friggin’ Director of the FBI. Maybe I’ll take a long lunch.”

“I just changed the last 25 years of your life, don’t you want to know what happened to everyone?”

“I’m sure all their lives are for the better.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

Scully thought. She wanted to ask about the dead, but instead she needed to start slow. “Agent Pendrell. Is he alive?”

Dr. They led her to the elevator and they made their way over to the Quantico lab. Through the glass walls she could see Pendrell kissing a woman. 

“Is that… he’s kissing Leyla Harrison?”

“Since you weren’t constantly needing him for lab work, he never developed a crush on you and, well, Leyla never became obsessed with you and Mulder so when they met they really hit it off.”

Scully entered the lab and they both pulled away abruptly, looking like two ripened tomatoes. “Director,” Pendrell acknowledged.

“What are you working on?” Scully asked already sneaking a peak at the file. Agent Mulder was clearly listed as the Agent in charge and her approval signature at the bottom. Scully gasped, a tear falling from her eye. The victim’s name.. Melissa Scully. “Do you-you have a lead?”

“Mulder cross-referenced the latent prints lifted from the body with the FBI database. We got a match.” Leyla opened up the computer and finished. “A Donnie Pfaster.”

Scully felt lightheaded. Her sister was killed by Pfaster? “But Pfaster is dead.”

Dr. They tightened his lip and explained. “Pfaster died because you killed him. Pfaster was caught the first time tracking you. Without the X-Files you stayed back in Quantico and performed the autopsies there. He never ran you off the road or brought you back to his mother’s house. The case remained unsolved. Melissa was in Boca Raton Florida and Pfaster had moved into his mother’s old place. He followed her home from Florida.”

“The chances of that happening must be astronomical,” Scully said in disbelief.

“What evil seeks, it finds,” Leyla replied. 

Pendrell and Leyla were so cold. There was something missing, the magic in their eyes was gone, replaced with a serious fact driven logic. How did they get this way? What happened to a leap of faith?

Knowing about Melissa was enough. She didn’t want to know what other repercussions awaited. She turned to Dr. They. “I’m ready to wrap this up. Let’s get to Tiny Tim’s house. I’ll buy him a turkey and give his dad a raise.”

“What about Mulder?”

“I already know what happens to Mulder. We have five kids and he remains an Agent solving cases. He’s happy.”

“And Krycek is his partner,” Dr. They finished with a sinister laugh.

That stopped her in her tracks. “What!?!” Scully scoffed. “That would never happen. The man killed his father.” 

“None of that happened. Those years, they’re gone. Mulder never battled for control over his brain while playing Russian roulette with a Pusher. He never came face to face with the fact that he would take his own life before he would take yours. You never witnessed an alien fetus, Tooms is still alive working at a Panera. You never believed, so he never went out in the desert to learn of the buried train car, he never died and met you on the bridge between worlds to speak of your connection. No revelations of your relationship during your cancer, no abduction, no Emily.”

“Then how did we meet?”

Dr. They sighed as though it pained him to indulge in such menial discourse. “He asked you to test a vial of Purity Control and you saved his life after he had been exposed to alien blood. That’s actually when he asked you out. Thought he’d hedge his bets.”

*

Scully drove and drove. Where was their house? She turned the street into a community and the driveway with a picket fence and a dog in the yard, neighbors, and a community park. 

When she opened the door Mulder was there with his new depthless bright eyed grin that set her on edge. He sent a peck to her cheek. “William and I had a real bonding moment while you were out. William was afraid his Tulpa wouldn’t want to play make believe anymore now that he turned eighteen, so you know what I told him? Son, if you want a friend, be one.”

“Good, advice,” she mumbled and set down her attache’. 

“I thought so.” 

“Mulder, you ever think about what makes you happy?” Scully asked as she got undressed and ready for bed.

“Only five more years and we get to rip up the mortgage, that makes me happy. Being married to you makes me happy,” Mulder replied and got into bed. His bare chest still a distracting truth no matter what Dr. They did to try to bend the collective.

“Really?” 

“Really. If it wasn’t for you I might have never settled down. Because of you, I’m a totally different person.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Scully said slipping off her work clothes. “Mulder, do you still feel passionate about me?”

“What man wouldn’t feel passionate about a woman that’s as incredible as you?”

“You mean that?” 

“Of course.”

Scully slowly unbuttoned her silk nightshirt. “Mulder, look at me and tell me that.” 

Mulder scoffed. “Scully, it’s 830, almost bedtime. Maybe we should wait until Sunday when the kids are at Six Flags.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Scully replied. A small piece of her dying inside. 

“You better hop under the covers, you’re going to catch a death of cold,” Mulder said wiggling his eyebrows and patting the spot next to him.

“I don’t know Mulder, this new job isn’t everything I thought it would be. Being married to you without conspiracies, x-files, living in a world within the realm of known science, it’s different. I mean it’s not anything you’ve done. Look at you. The pillar of the community, doting parent, model husband, hardworking, responsible. You’ve made a lovely child-proof home for me and the kids. Lots of cozy corners, big yards, swings, an olympic sized sandbox. You’ve been great, better than great, you’ve been ideal, but I’m not sure you’re the same person I used to know and I don’t know if I like the change. It’s not your fault. I got what I asked for.” Scully sighed and lowered her voice. “Let’s sleep outside tonight. We could put some blankets out on the lawn, just the two of us. Make love in the moonlight.” Scully’s eyes reached for his, but his had already closed as he snored softly.

Not feeling at all tired, she made her way downstairs to get some water. Before she reached the kitchen she glanced onto their deck. Through the sliding glass door, a figure, looking like sand trapped in a waterfall, slowly materialized. 

It was Mulder staring her down. Black leather warmed his body. Scully opened the door as the image solidified. Unknowingly, she had been waiting for him. “I didn’t know you still existed.”

“As long as you need me, I’ll always be here..” Mulder ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip piercing her heart with his gaze. “So which Mulder do you want? Me, or that jar of mayonnaise you call a husband?” 

Scully gulped and ignored the tensing low in her belly. “I made my choice. I’m afraid you need to go.” 

She closed the door, bolting it, but their eyes also locked. Like a neodymium magnet their hands pulled at the others pressing against the plated glass. It made her ache- her heart, her stomach, between her thighs. The glass separating the pads of their fingers burned her like dry ice, shattering from the tension, forcing her back. His relentless pursuit pulsing inside her. The sandy waterfall form stepped across the threshold, the remaining glass fell like drops of water, showering them as his mouth descended on hers, and their lips crashed together, moving over each other in frantic need. She couldn’t stop touching him, her tongue couldn’t caress his strong enough, her nostrils could inhale his scent deep enough. 

“I need you, I need this,” she heard herself saying as she tore at his clothes and they fell to the floor.

Scully woke in a sweat. What a dream. She twisted and turned inside her familiar sheets, stretching out on the delightfully lonesome bed in her quiet house. 

When she pulled into the garage of the Hoover building, it comforted her to see their black SUV. Mulder was already there. 

She looked at her watch and remembered they had a meeting in ten minutes. She hurried into the elevator and headed up to her office. Mulder was sitting at the table waiting. 

“There’s been an outbreak of smallpox in Texas and another unidentified virus,” he informed her.

Scully nodded and flipped her brain into work mode. “I’ll need to organize a team. I’m sure you’ll want to lead one.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want to go,” Mulder flirted, but Scully stayed steady.

“That’s not my life. I’m a director. Skinner should be the one to go.”

Mulder held a finger underneath her chin, tilting it so their hearts connected through their eyes. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m glad you’re not in the center of the fire.”

Not wanting to show emotion at the office, Scully tightened her lip. “I’ll be out in the field for this. At least at the hospitals.”

The rest occurred as a blur. The rioting in the streets, the hospitals flooding with people demanding treatment, the race for a vaccine- but there was none to be had. Mulder, hunting for the source, found himself sick, dying on a bridge with his partner…

*

Skinner’s strong hand laid on Scully’s shoulder. A chill shook through her body as she stood over the gravesite. She sprinkled dirt on his casket along with some tears. Somehow her heart remembered to beat as she mourned the death of her own soul. Five children she would have to raise on her own. There had to be a reason for his death, a greater plan, one she must uncover. Her cross burned at her neck as she tried to relearn how to breathe. Skinner did his best to give her strength. Had her own fears betrayed Mulder?

Bill had been thoughtful enough to take the kids so she could mourn by herself without their witness. Not wanting to deal with anything else in the house she headed directly to their bedroom. Face first she fell into her pillow with quiet sobs and deep bellowing breaths. A jar on her nightstand caught her eye. She sucked back some tears and lifted it. It was filled with tiny pieces of paper. Confused she picked one out. It read: _At your choice,_ _Emily would have been ours_. Who was Emily? She picked out another. _I wanted to have that wine and cheese party with you._ It still held no familiarity, so she pulled yet another out of the jar: _I feared never seeing you again the day I left for Oregon with Skinner._

_“_ Oregon,” she said aloud before reaching in again. _I enjoyed when others saw us as a couple._ She couldn’t stop. She reached in again and again, not understanding until she got to the last few. _I wanted to have children with you before you ever asked. I failed, and let the darkness come between us. I chose you over everything, but I only told it to empty rooms._ _I’ve loved you since the day we laughed in the rain._

Memories flipped like pages in an old book of photographs: running down alleyways, flashlights on pavement, skeletons in a grave, mutilated bodies, gelatinized flesh, the pull of a trigger, the bullet penetrating his shoulder, penetrating her abdomen, the heat of explosions, the ash of corpses, the history burned by a spark of a cigarette inked onto vulnerable paper, the feel of his hand- at her back, on her shoulder, intertwined with hers locked by the adhesion of their bond, glowing bugs-in her lungs, tobacco beetles inside his, Mulder lying on a table with his crown of metallic thorns, her thumb passes over his lips, her soul locks onto his through their eyes and he leans into her in an empty hollow hallway and kisses her with their child in his arms, pulls away with the hope of a New Year, and crashes back together in a jail cell with the desperation of being apart, not letting go of her hand as the other caresses through his hair as their tongues move over the others only to pull back again into an embrace outside their home with a promise of things to come, they hold hands and walk through their swaying field listening to the sounds of angels telling them the way... 

Scully’s eyes flung open, waking as if being immersed in ice water, as if a hypodermic needle of adrenaline had been emptied into her carotid. She took in her surroundings as her heart rate steadied. She was in her apartment -the smart home she moved into long after her and Mulder had separated, but it was not quite right. She couldn’t recall any cases from the time they stopped the terrorists at the Babylon motel until now. Not one case in the two years they had remained separated surfaced into her memory. What she did recall was waking up in a hospital and visions of the future. A vibrating sound scurried along the floor. Scully followed the sound to discover her pink little friend vibrating and twitching underneath the bed. Then it repeated. Like deja vu’. Like a glitch. In time. In reality. Then reality cracked. Shattered and the shards flew away into the void.

“Mulder?” She cries out frantically. Terror strikes through her. “Mulder!” Blind. Without sound, without smell she screams again. “Muuulderrr!” 

She feels restraints on her wrists. Something is holding her back, her feet. Cold metal. Slowly she’s able to focus. Scully gasps. She’s inside a ship. She looks over and Mulder’s face is beaten, he’s very sick, strapped to a chair much like her own. He’s dying. 

Pain. Then black. Her eyes open, her pupils like two flash beams expanding, showing each memory like flying by one tree at a time, passing them until the woods of their lives come into view. Her body seizes, back arches and her head hits the hard steel. Her brain lights up as though it's on fire. William. Transmitting. She calls out to him. He answers. 

Scully screams in her head. Screams out loud, her own voice ringing in her ears. She can feel the blood rush and capillaries burst. She remembers. William must provide the antidote for Mulder or he will die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GA had been asked what advice she would give Scully and her answer was "Don't do it."  
> Her answer stuck in my brain and I thought I'd explore it with an "It's A Wonderful Life" scenario.  
> I hope you enjoyed it. I will most likely add one more chapter to tie up the loose strings.


End file.
